What A Waste Of Me
by TillThatTime
Summary: “How can you do this? How can you stand there and continue to lie to me? I gave you everything Troy! Everything there was to give. The least you could do is tell me the truth that I already know.” Songfic, possibly a oneshot. Slashy boy love! Oh, baby.


**Disclaimer: **Blah blah, don't own, yada yada.

**A/N: **Ok, I said that I was probably not going to write anymore Troy/Ryan fictions….well I lied. I don't think this is cliché because I didn't play the weak Ryan card. I showed Ryan in a new, stronger light. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for my lovely reviews for all my other stories. (OCP is my review hero!)

Also flames are so very welcome. In all truth, they make me giggle.

**P.S.** This is a song called "Happy" By British singer, Amy Studt. Check out her stuff, she is brilliant.

Much love!

Danielle (TillThatTime)

* * *

_**Did I ever even cross your mind?  
**_**_Cause it's not game of who is under the thumb  
I think you took me for a ride,  
But I didn't see,  
I didn't even realise,  
that we were playing games of under the thumb,  
I think you took me for a ride,  
What a waste of me. Under the Thumb, By: Amy Studt_**

* * *

**What A Waste Of Me**

_**Happy now, I wonder are you, happy now?  
Now that you've had me **_

_**And I'm on my own, **_

**_All alone.  
Are you happy now?_**

There he sat, trembling from the cold and trying to keep what was left of his dignity intact. The harsh wind beat roughly against the pale skin of his cheeks and his eyes burned from tears that he refused to shed. A small suitcase sat beside him on the hard, bus stop bench. He waited there, in the dark, for the bus to come and take him away from this world that he could never truly escape.

His mind wandered involuntarily to the face of the one that he was trying to leave behind. The face of the man who he had given everything to and had never really given anything back. There was a split second where he felt like picking up his suitcase and running home. Running back to _him_. Throwing away this ridiculous notion of leaving him because how could he possible go on without him? But then he thought better, because he _knew _better.

Ryan Evans was not weak and he had never _been_ weak. So he'd be damned if he was going to show weakness now. No, now was the time to step away. Now was the time to pick up the broken pieces and move on. Staying with him would be like lying in a blanket of shattered glass. Just an unnecessary reason for pain…..

_**I recall the way you always **_

_**looked at me, **_

_**you chose those words effectively **_

_**to work your way, inside of me.**_

He remembers vividly the first time their lips had touched. They had both been so young, barely seventeen at the time. It had been a simple kiss. Just a small brush of lips with shocked expressions planted on their features afterwards.

However, it had been the kiss to spark the thousands that would follow in its footsteps. They had been launched into a unethical romance of grand proportions. They had fought countless times and had made up countless more. There were times when their screams could wake the neighbors, whether it be from passion or outrage. There was no one in the world that could make Ryan as angry as Troy Bolton could, but God, did he love him.

They had moved in together when they were 18. Now, a year and a half later, all Ryan had to show for it was a tattered suitcase and a thousand broken pieces of everything he thought he'd loved.

_**I had so much to give,**_

_**But you didn't have to take it all. **_

_**The pain I'm left with, **_

_**I'm wondering, are you happy now? **_

_**Are you happy now?**_

He bit down on his bottom lip hard enough to draw the coppery taste of blood. He cursed himself as the tears spilled over his eyes and he reached up to wipe them away quickly, finding shame in the fact that his tears were something he could not control.

"Dammit…." He rasped out, his voice harsh and strained from the effort to keep his throat from cracking with a dry sob. He ran his fingers through his light blonde hair as a sort of calming method that he had picked up as a child. He breathed in slowly to repress some of the anger that he was feeling. The anger at Troy, the anger at life, but most of all, the anger he felt towards himself. Anger for knowing that he had been naïve, that he had been so _damn stupid_.

For nearly two years he had set there and let him do it. He would pretend not to notice as Troy would come home with the undeniable stench of sex covering his body. He listened with "believing" ears at the excuses, the lies and all the wondrous tales of why he was home late again. Never truly believing, but just so ridiculously blind.

Until one day he just couldn't take anymore. _Wouldn't_ take anymore.

_**Happy now, I wonder,**_

_**Are you still happy now? **_

_**Now that I've left you **_

_**And you're on your own,  
All alone, **_

**_Are you happy now? _**

It had only been an hour ago when he had walked out that door with his suitcase grasped in his trembling hands and Troy begging him not to leave.

"_What are you doing, Ryan?" Troy said quietly as he noticed the suitcase setting beside Ryan's feet. He had just walked in the door to find Ryan standing in the front hallway, waiting for him. Ryan looked at him for a moment, as if trying to find the strength to form the words that Troy dreaded to hear._

"_I can't do this anymore." His voice was barely above a whisper but there was determination laced in its depths._

"_What are you talking about?" Troy laughed nervously as he stepped forward to put his arms around Ryan's slender waist. Ryan pulled away quickly from Troy's reaching grasp._

"_Don't"_

"_Ryan-" Troy tried once again to bring the blonde into his arms, but this time Ryan roughly pushed his hands away._

"_I said don't" Each word was articulated perfectly as if Ryan wanted to make sure that Troy heard every single syllable. "I wont let you do this to me anymore."_

"_Do what, Ryan? What are you talking about?" Troy kept his voice calm as he fiend stupidity._

"_Do you think I'm an idiot, Troy? Do you think that somehow I never actually noticed?"_

"_I don't know what your talking about, baby."_

"_I'm talking about sex, Troy! I'm talking about the fact that every time you told me that I was the only person you could ever be with, that you were lying through your god damned teeth! You fucked me over when you started fucking someone else!" _

"_Ryan, listen to me. I never cheated on you." Troy's voice began to rise in octaves as the need for desperation became more apparent._

_Ryan's eyes began to brim with tears and his chin trembled slightly as he spoke his next words. "How can you do this? How can you stand there and continue to lie to me? I gave you everything Troy! Everything there was to give. The **least** you could do is tell me the truth that I already know." Ryan clasped his hands together to control their violent shaking. His breathing came out in ragged huffs and the tears were flowing unabashedly down his cheeks, but behind the tears, his demeanor was strong. "Don't play with me anymore."_

_**What goes around, comes around. **_

_**What goes up, must come down down down. **_

_**Why did it take me so long **_

**_To see you make me so unhappy?_**

"_Ryan I can explain." Troy's eyes were wild now. The game was up. There was no more denying. Nothing left that he could hide, because now he knew, because now he was leaving him._

"_Oh, I know you could explain. You could stand there and explain every single detail to me, but that would never change the fact that there is reason to explain anything in the first place."_

"_Please Ryan, don't do this. I love you. God, you know I love you." He walked quickly over to Ryan, filling the gap between them. He clutched Ryan's pale face in his hands and the tears fell in waves down his cheek as he tried desperately to make him understand. _

_Ryan looked at him for a moment, his confidence faltering, but then he slowly reached up and took Troy's hands away from his face. "Too bad I wasn't the only one." He said harshly as he walked over to where his suitcase lay._

"_Don't leave me." Troy cried out from behind him and Ryan turned around. Pain, and the smallest trace of pity laced in his features._

"_Those two years. Those two years when I kissed you, when I made love to you. When I comforted you and praised you and loved you. Out of those two years, how long were you faithful to me?"_

"_Ryan, please-"_

"_Just answer me that one question, Troy Bolton. For once, just do something for **me**." Troy slowly nodded his head. "How long."_

"_Three months." Troy's head hung low in shame, unable to meet his lover's eyes. Ryan let out a cold, bitter laugh as he picked up his suitcase._

"_I hate you Troy Bolton." He said quietly but Troy heard nonetheless. "But thank you," Troy lifted his head, I glimmer of hope shining in his hazel eyes. "Thank you, for finally making me realize just how much."_

_Troy let out a strangled sob as Ryan headed for the door. He turned around one last time to face the man that he had loved for so long. **Too **long._

"_You had me. I loved you. You **ruined** it, and now I'm leaving you." Troy fell to his knees as he realized that Ryan was truly walked out that door and never coming back._

"_Are you happy now?"_

_**And now I know, and now I know.  
Happy now, guess you could say I'm happy now. **_

_**We'll meet again some day some how. **_

_**But until then, look whose happy, **_

_**Look whose happy.**_

The bus pulled to a stop in front him and the doors flung open. The doors that would lead him to his new life. His new life without _him. _He held his head high as he picked up his suitcase and began to ascend the steps to lead him away from his past. With one look back at his home town of Albuquerque, he handed the bus driver his fee and sat down on the cold, plastic seats. His mouth was dry and his heart ached from the sheer effort that it took to keep on breathing, but he knew he was making the right decision. Ryan Evans is strong, will always _be_ strong, and no one will ever play him again.

_**Look whose happy now.**_


End file.
